Page 36 of My Brilliant Career

‘He’s run into the clothes-line, that’s what he’s done,’ said Miss Augusta confidently, after she had peeped beneath the bandage.

‘You ought to get a bun for guessing, aunt Gus,’ said Harold laughing.

‘I told them to put the clothes-line up when they had done with them. I knew there would be an accident.’

‘Perhaps they were put up high enough for ordinary purposes,’ remarked her nephew.

‘Let me do something for you, dear.’

‘No, thank you, aunt Gus. It is nothing,’ he said carelessly, and the matter dropped.

Harold Beecham was not a man to invite inquiry concerning himself.

Seeing I was unobserved by the company, I slipped away to indulge in my foolish habit of asking the why and the wherefore of things. Why had Harold Beecham (who was a sort of young sultan who could throw the handkerchief where he liked) chosen me of all women? I had no charms to recommend me — none of the virtues which men demand of the woman they wish to make their wife. To begin with, I was small, I was erratic and unorthodox, I was nothing but a tomboy — and, cardinal disqualification, I was ugly. Why, then, had he proposed matrimony to me? Was it merely a whim? Was he really in earnest?

The night was soft and dark; after being out in it for a time I could discern the shrubs dimly silhouetted against the light. The music struck up inside again. A step approached me on the gravelled walk among the flowers, and Harold called me softly by name. I answered him.

‘Come,’ he said, ‘we are going to dance; will you be my partner?’

We danced, and then followed songs and parlour games, and it was in the small hours when the merry goodnights were all said and we had retired to rest. Aunt Helen dropped to sleep in a short time; but I lay awake listening to the soft distant call of the mopokes in the scrub beyond the stables.

21 MY UNLADYLIKE BEHAVIOUR AGAIN

Joe Archer was appointed to take us home on the morrow. When our host was seeing us off — still with his eye covered — he took opportunity of whispering to me his intention of coming to Caddagat on the following Sunday.

Early in the afternoon of that day I took a book, and, going down the road some distance, climbed up a broad-branched willow-tree to wait for him.

It was not long before he appeared at a smart canter. He did not see me in the tree, but his horse did, and propping, snorted wildly, and gave a backward run. Harold spurred him, he bucked spiritedly. Harold now saw me and sang out:

‘I say, don’t frighten him any more or he’ll fling me, saddle and all. I haven’t got a crupper or a breastplate.’

‘Why haven’t you, then? Hang on to him. I do like the look of you while the horse is going on like that.’

He had dismounted, and had thrown the bridle rein over a post of the fence.

‘I came with nothing but a girth, and that loose, as it was so hot; and I was as near as twopence to being off, saddle and all. You might have been the death of me,’ he said good-humouredly.

‘Had I been, my fortune would have been made,’ I replied.

‘How do you make that out? You’re as complimentary as ever.’

‘Everyone would be wanting to engage me as the great noxious weed-killer and poisonous insect exterminator if I made away with you,’ I answered. I gave him an invitation to take a seat with me, and accepting, he swung up with easy grace. There was any amount of accommodation for the two of us on the good-natured branches of the old willow-tree.

When he had settled himself, my companion said, ‘Now, Syb, I’m ready for you. Fire away. But wait a minute, I’ve got something here for you which I hope you’ll like.’

As he searched in his pockets, I noticed that his eye had quite recovered, though there was still a slight mark on his cheek. He handed me a tiny morocco case, which on being opened disclosed a costly ring. I have about as much idea of the prices of things as a turkey would have. Perhaps that ring cost thirty pounds or possibly fifty guineas, for all I know. It was very heavy, and had a big diamond supported on either side by a large sapphire, and had many small gems surrounding it.

‘Let me see if it fits,’ he said, taking my hand; but I drew it away.

‘No; don’t you put it on. That would make us irrevocably engaged.’

‘Isn’t that what we intend to be?’ he said in a tone of surprise.

‘Not just yet; that is what I want to say to you. We will have three months’ probation to see how we get on. At the end of that time, if we manage to sail along smoothly, we’ll have the real thing; until then we will not be any more than we have been to each other.’

‘But what am I to do in the meantime?’ he asked, with amusement curving the corners of his mouth.

‘Do! Do the usual thing, of course; but don’t pay me any special attentions, or I’ll be done with you at once.’